Gavotte
by Feral Phoenix
Summary: Shinji is just an average first grader, despite the strangeness of his family. And he likes being the normal one. So he's not happy when new kid Kaworu arbitrarily decides to turn his life upside down. Tame KxS fluff.
1. Prologue

Gavotte

DISCLAIMER: I don't presume to own Neon Genesis Evangelion or anything related to it—I'm just an overobsessed little fangirl who's been watching too much anime these days… if there's even such a thing as too much anime… well, anyway, this fanfic's existence probably has a lot more to do with the fact that the tenth volume of the EVA manga is due to come out this October than anything else. (OHGODOHGODCAN'TWAIT.) But anyway, I don't own, so you don't sue—you know the drill…

**Gavotte **_n _F, fr. MF, fr. OProv _gavato_** 1: **a dance of French peasant origin marked by the raising rather than sliding of the feet **2:** a tune for the gavotte in moderately quick 4/4 time—gavotte _vi_

Prelude

"I have to go to practice now… sorry, guys. I'll see you tomorrow."

Kensuke shrugged. "It's no problem," he said, adjusting his glasses, which had been slipping down his freckled nose again for the millionth time that day. "There's a show on the History Channel that I wanna watch, anyway. Have fun, and don't let Asuka run you into the ground, okay?"

Toji snorted. "He _always _lets Asuka run him into the ground. That's the one thing that never changes. At least he'll have his darling boyfriend there to protect him now—isn't that right, Shinji?"

Huffing, Hikari grabbed the sleeve of Toji's uniform and gave him an irritated shake. "Stop picking on Shinji already! We have to clean up the classroom before either of us do anything!"

"Awww, comeon—do we _haveta?" _Toji whined.

Knowing that Toji and Hikari would happily spend the rest of the day arguing with or without him there to watch, Shinji Ikari gave his friends a wave and headed towards the auditorium, one arm tightly around his cello's black case. Kensuke waved back, then turned to laugh at the escalating argument between the class rep and the unofficial class stooge.

When he got there, the others were already assembled in a circle in the metallic fold-up chairs that the district had been kind enough to supply their school's music department with. They were uncomfortable but better than nothing, though Shinji sometimes wished he could bring the black stand he had at home to use instead of the flimsy little wire things that the orchestra teacher had stocked up on. It wasn't like First Municipal High School was poor, but the district only had so much to spend on a music department that seemed to get smaller every year. Tokyo-3's education system tended to stress math and science over the fine arts, and so kids never really seemed into playing instruments. Girls thought it was uncool, and boys tended to think that playing stringed instruments other than guitars was an automatic marker of being either a sissy or a fag.

Though its existence was tenuous, the music department still existed now, and Shinji and his friends were going to enjoy it while it lasted.

Asuka gave him a jaundiced glare as he knelt down to take his cello out. "You're late _again," _she snapped, her icy blue eyes flashing in irritation. "Why don't you ever _look _at that stupid watch you're wearing? Jeez! I was stuck here with Wondergirl and pretty boy again, and nobody to talk to!"

"Nobody to talk to or nobody to make fun of?" Shinji asked himself under his breath, but didn't say it loud enough for Asuka to hear him—she'd probably kick him or something, and risk hitting his precious instrument.

As he set the cello's endpin in his rockstop, Shinji plucked at its strings, frowning as he realized that they were out of tune again. He sighed, aggravated. After the road trip he and his friends had just gone on in order to perform in Matsushiro, his A, D, and C strings had all broken, and since they were new, they still got out of tune pretty easily.

The bright, heartbreakingly sweet sound of a violin's A, played in position on the D string with perfect vibrato, startled Shinji out of his sulk and made him look up. Kaworu, across from him, smiled warmly as he changed bowstrokes.

"Show-off," Asuka grumbled, but Shinji smiled back and reached around to his fine-tuners.

When he got to the C string, Rei dog-eared her thick volume of Tolstoy, then played hers for him. While Kaworu could have given Shinji one at a much higher octave, Rei's viola was lower and would help Shinji tune more accurately.

Once Shinji was finished, Asuka glowered at all of them as if they'd insulted her, then flipped through her sheet music. "Alright, we need to practice this without the metronome today or else we're _never _going to be ready for the next performance. We can't exactly have one onstage, now can we?" She lifted her violin to her shoulder and jabbed her bow in Shinji's direction. _"You _need to get your loser ass moving on those sixteenth notes—there won't be any other cellos to bail you out with just the four of us."

Shinji sighed and headslumped. "Yes, ma'am."

Asuka gave a little "hmph" and turned to Rei. _"You _need to play out. I'm sitting right next to you and I can't hear you at all." Without waiting for a response, she whirled to fix Kaworu with an evil stare. "And _you _keep going too slow. If you can't manage to play at tempo, then maybe we should switch parts."

Kaworu smiled at her. "Asuka, I believe that if you listen to the tapes we've made, you'll find that _you've _actually been rushing quite a bit. And even if we were to change the marked tempo to the one you prefer, neither Rei nor Shinji could possibly keep up with us. What you see as my playing too slowly is an attempt to hold you back. Rei and Shinji are simply too polite to oppose you directly."

_"What!" _Asuka demanded, getting red in the face. "I am _not!"_

Kaworu just laughed, which made Asuka even angrier.

_"I'm _playing it perfectly! None of you can measure up to my level, that's all!"

"If that's so, then why does Kaworu have the first violin part?" Rei asked softly, propping her viola on her knee.

Asuka went a particularly lovely shade of pink, blushing straight up to her ears as she rounded fiercely on Rei. "You just _shut up!"_

Rei did not respond, picking up her pencil to mark something in her music almost as if she hadn't heard Asuka at all.

As Asuka opened her mouth again to start yelling, Shinji cleared his throat awkwardly. "Come on, guys," he ventured as all three of his friends turned to look at him. "We need to get _some_ practice done, at least."

Asuka pouted; Kaworu laughed again, and Rei gave Shinji a small smile. Still, the three of them readied their instruments, setting their bows to the strings.

Kaworu counted off, and they began to play.

As Shinji watched his music, he let his mind wander; keeping himself in the state of half-concentration he performed best in. Letting the notes flow from his bow and his fingers, he stole glances at his friends when the music allowed him to.

Rei was staring at her music with her eyes half-closed, a soft and distant smile on her face as she played. She hadn't started playing the viola until music had become a curricular option for students in the elementary school they had attended, but she was a fairly good musician even if she needed a little prodding to take initiative. It was true that she had trouble getting more volume than the occasional forte out of her viola, but then, Shinji was always enraptured by the soft, breathy, romantic style of her bowing. Asuka complained that Rei didn't use enough weight when she played, but while she faded into the background during their quartets, she was a beautiful soloist. Rei was just quiet all the time—it seeped into her playing too, but she couldn't help that.

Asuka was giving the book of quartets in front of her an evil glare. Probably because of the bad mood she was already in, her bowing was a little more staccato than necessary, and her gesticulations while she played were sharp, stilted, and angry. She was playing too loudly and Shinji could tell that she was already starting to rush—but then, that was Asuka for you; she always had to turn everything into a competition. No wonder she complained that Rei's viola part was too soft—she herself kept drowning it out! Having played the violin since she was in the third grade (she said—Shinji hadn't known her until she and her mother had come to Japan from Germany in the fifth grade), Asuka had definite skill but the stylistic elements of her playing were somewhat lacking. Usually, her enthusiasm made up for her shortcomings, though, and she had a drive for perfection that Shinji had to admire.

And Kaworu? Shinji observed with a smile that the silver-haired young man was already totally absorbed in the music. When not down at the NERV lab for testing or out somewhere with Shinji, Kaworu lived and _breathed _music. He played his violin with bold, stylized movements, speeding up or slowing down according to what he felt as he made his way down the measures of whatever piece he'd picked for the day. Shinji had gotten pretty good at following him, though Rei tended to stick to the marked tempo and Asuka, though always second violin, still suffered from the delusion that quartets always had to be about her. Music was Kaworu's passion, and he'd already been nearing mastery of his violin when he and Shinji had first met, all the way back in the first grade.

_It's amazing that we've all lasted this long, _Shinji acknowledged. _Back when Rei started living with us, she had trouble even stringing two words together… Asuka was a terrible bully… and Kaworu was too different for me to feel good about associating with him._

_But here we are, all these years later… sitting around the auditorium, playing a gavotte._

_It's funny sometimes, the way that life works. Sometimes, it'll drop a windfall on your door that acts so much like a kick in the shins that you don't recognize it for what it _really _is for years…_

:TBC:


	2. First Impressions

Gavotte

See disclaimer in the prelude

The NERV labs were most definitely not Shinji's favorite place to be.

They were always cold, even in summer; the hard seats of the metal chairs in the waiting atrium were uncomfortable. There was nothing to play with but a set of old, worn blocks, nothing to really _do. _But both of Shinji's parents worked here, so sometimes he had to come too—especially when his usual babysitter, Misato, couldn't spare the time to take care of him.

Both Yui and Gendo Ikari were top-ranking officials at NERV, and Gendo was already so busy with work that he and Shinji rarely saw each other. Yui, who enjoyed being a mother, stayed with Shinji as much as she could, but even she had a deep devotion to her work, and so Shinji ended up in the dank and sterile waiting room more than he enjoyed.

Perhaps out of her shame at not being able to stay with her son as much as she needed, Yui had provided him with a companion.

Shinji glanced to the side, clutching the hems of his shorts awkwardly. Rei was sitting two chairs away from him, balancing a huge book in her lap and ignoring the world around her. She looked almost ridiculous like that—such a very _little _girl, and such a _big _Shakespeare anthology—but if she cared what other people thought about the image, Rei Ayanami certainly did not show it. About the same age as Shinji—though Shinji didn't know for sure even when Rei's birthday was, though the two of them had lived together with Shinji's parents for almost a year now—she had soft sky-blue hair that fell around her face in a rough, short cut that was just long enough for her to hide behind if she so chose. Instead of bangs, she had a shorter line of hair that followed her part and fell to her eyebrows on either side of her forehead. Her stark red eyes looked mostly closed, and were flicking back and forth over the text of the book in her lap. She was wearing a bright red jumper that Shinji's mother had picked out, a delicate pink short-sleeved shirt beneath it, frilly white socks, and black patent leather Mary Janes. There was a thin ribbon tied around the collar of her shirt, and from the long loose strands dangled a pair of fluffy, plush-looking pompoms. She was kicking her feet absently as she read, turning a page or two every five minutes or so.

Rei had to be the quietest kid Shinji had ever met, even quieter than he was. Introverted and shy himself, the seven-year-old boy was still not above dodging behind his mother's skirts in uncomfortable situations, but he at least _talked _to people—Rei didn't, and when she _had _to, she gave one-word responses, speaking in a soft monotone barely more than a mumble.

"Awkward" was probably the best word for how things were between them, even after living together since kindergarten.

Rei's silences never seemed to bother Yui one bit, though. Shinji's mother always made sure that both her son and her strange adoptee were included in whatever interesting games she could come up with at the moment. Shinji completely adored his mother—she was perfect in his eyes, and she did her best to make life fun and happy for him… even in places like this.

Usually when Shinji was here in the labs, he was here alone—for whatever reason, Rei had been picked as one of the test subjects in NERV's latest experiment. But today, she was out here with him, and that was one of the reasons Shinji didn't quite know what to do with himself, even more than he normally did around her. They'd been sitting here for almost an hour, and neither one of them had spoken.

_This would be easier if she would just talk… _Shinji thought, fidgeting. _Even if she was mad…_

Rei turned another page. Shinji opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, not knowing what to say to get her talking. If there was one thing that Shinji _knew _Rei didn't like, it was making conversation. And it would be just his luck to finally get her to speak at the cost of her hating him.

Instead, he sighed and hunkered down in the seat, feeling miserable.

He wasn't used to having Rei sitting here with him in the waiting room. Even if he didn't know much else about her, he _did _know that she was one of the test subjects in the experiment his parents were working on, and so she was almost always inside with them here at NERV. But today was different, and that was one of the things that Shinji wished he had the courage to ask her about. Was her part of the testing done for good, or were his parents just taking a break?

The door that led to the labs opened, and both Shinji and Rei looked up. Maybe Shinji's unspoken question would get answered, after all.

"Shinji? Rei-chan?" Yui was standing there in the doorframe, smiling at both of them, and Shinji smiled back at her. His mother was pretty even in a white lab coat, with bright chestnut hair in a wolf cut a little bit longer than Rei's hair and kind green eyes. "Thank you for waiting for me. There's someone special here to meet you."

That was when Shinji realized that his mother was holding someone by the hand.

"Come on, don't be shy," Yui coaxed whoever it was with a smile. "That's not like you."

A small child about Rei and Shinji's age peeked around the door towards them, staring at both of them out of wide red eyes that held a mixture of nervousness and intense curiosity.

"This is Kaworu Nagisa," Yui told them. "Kaworu, I've already told you about my son Shinji and Rei, whom you'll be working with in our latest project."

"Nice to meet you," Kaworu said with a very slight bow, all that nervousness instantly gone.

"How do you do." In Rei's quiet monotone, it was a statement rather than a question.

"Um… hi," Shinji said falteringly. There was something weird about this kid.

Kaworu's gaze was somehow too curious, his posture and his stare both too direct. Otherwise, Shinji couldn't place his feeling that there was something not quite right about him. He _looked _more or less normal… he seemed as if he was a little bit taller than Shinji, and was dressed in a pair of khaki shorts that looked a little big on him and a black T-shirt that had a white music note on its small breast pocket. His complexion was a little pale, but then so was Rei's; his hair was almost pure white, and would've been in a wolf cut slightly shorter than Yui's if it hadn't been fluffing out in all directions. He had an unusually angular face for a Japanese kid, despite the lingering bit of baby fat in his cheeks; his nose was a little bit too pointed and his chin too sharp, and his smile looked almost too big for his face. Aside from that, there wasn't anything truly weird about his appearance. But Shinji still had that feeling, and he didn't like it.

Kaworu Nagisa was trouble. And Shinji made a point to avoid trouble.

"Rei-chan, it's your turn to come in," Yui said with a smile, breaking the silence as the three children studied each other. "Kaworu, you wait out here with Shinji, alright?"

As Rei laboriously dogeared the page of her book and slid off her chair with the huge thing in her arms, Shinji froze, giving his mother a desperate look. _Oh, _please, _no._

"Have fun, alright?" Yui took Rei by the hand in Kaworu's place and led her back into the lab, with the door swinging shut behind them. Kaworu, meanwhile, ambled over to Shinji and sat in the empty chair next to him, despite the other boy's distinctly unenthused countenance.

As Yui and Rei headed back through the halls towards the Instrumentality chamber, the two of them were accosted by one of the younger scientists, a particularly intelligent blonde girl named Ritsuko.

"Doctor, are you _sure _it's all right to leave them out there?" she said uncomfortably, gesturing towards the waiting room. "After all, this is Tabris' first time associating with another child his age."

"He'll be alright," Yui replied with assurance. "Shinji won't bite. He's been doing fine with Rei this past year, and I have no reason to believe he'll treat Kaworu discourteously."

Ritsuko sighed. "But, Doctor, that may just be because Lilith has always kept to herself. Tabris tends to be a little more… intrusive, and I'm not sure how either he or your son will handle this kind of contact."

"Rei and Kaworu, please," Yui insisted kindly but firmly. "They've entered human society, and they need to be called by their human names. 'Lilith' and 'Tabris' are just things to the scientists here, but Rei and Kaworu are also people, human or not. They should be treated like people, too."

"…I apologize, Doctor," Ritsuko said somewhat stiffly.

If Yui noticed, she didn't comment. Instead, she smiled. "And about your concerns… Kaworu is going to have to learn some propriety one way or another. Whether his interactions with Shinji are supervised or not, being with my son will teach him how to act more normally." She looked down at the child she was still trailing, and her smile grew. "Don't you think so, Rei-chan?"

Rei looked up at Yui out of wide crimson eyes, but didn't respond.

---

It had only been fifteen minutes since Rei and his mother had left, but Shinji was already contemplating beating his head against the wall.

Kaworu didn't just carry a weird feeling with him, he _acted _pretty weird, too.

And he asked _way too many questions._

"What's it like to live with a mother?" Kaworu asked him, sitting with his hands on his knees almost in emulation of Shinji's own defensive posture. Like Rei had been, he was kicking his feet as he talked, but more vigorously, so that the shoelaces on his left sneaker had already come undone without Kaworu's noticing. "Is yours nice?"

Shinji gave Kaworu a look. "What kind of question is _that?" _he asked flatly. "YOU have one, don't you? Stop asking me all this weird stuff!"

Kaworu just blinked and gave him a blank look. "No, I don't."

"Huh?"

"I don't have a mother." Kaworu shrugged, his voice and expression matter-of-fact.

Shinji stared at him. "You don't have a mother," he repeated as the two of them looked at each other. "Well, then, don't you have a father?"

Kaworu shook his head to the same rhythm of his feet, causing his fluffy hair to flounce. "No. I don't have any parents."

"That's stupid," Shinji replied, scornful. _"Everybody _has parents. All babies come from a mom and a dad, everyone knows that. So you have to have had parents _sometime."_

"No." Kaworu was still giving him that slightly blank look. "I just don't have any. I don't think I ever have."

_This kid is even weirder than I thought, _Shinji thought, and edged away a little bit before continuing. "Then how did you get born, if you don't have a mom and dad?"

Kaworu shrugged, nonplussed. "I don't know. I was born here, at the lab. I've always been here."

Shinji goggled at him, dumbfounded. _"Always?" _he asked at last. "You've _never _been out?"

Kaworu shook his head again, even more vigorously, and stopped kicking his feet in the air, instead itching at the sole of his left shoe with the toe of his right. "Nope."

There was a long silence. Shinji fidgeted awkwardly. _He's even worse than Rei. At least she doesn't act so weird all the time. There is definitely something wrong with him._

"So what's it like to live with a mother?" Kaworu asked again.

Shinji just looked at him. "How am I supposed to tell you that? There must be _somebody _who takes care of you here, right? Who makes you food and helps you go to bed at night? Somebody like that?"

"Just the scientists, and they don't do much of that. I sleep when I'm tired. I know where the food is if I get hungry." Kaworu shrugged, looking at Shinji with a similar expression to the one the young boy wore himself, but more curious, less on edge.

Shinji shook his head at Kaworu, disbelieving. This boy was just _too _strange.

Luckily, more time seemed to have passed than Shinji thought, what with all of Kaworu's incessant questioning. The door slid open again, and by some miracle, Yui and Rei were there—Yui with the same smile, and Rei still holding onto her big book, though Shinji noticed that there was a band-aid on her upper arm.

"Okay, Rei-chan, that's all for today." Yui gently propelled the small girl into the waiting room. "Kaworu, you need your shot, and then you should eat something. Try not to get in anyone's way, okay?"

"Okay." Kaworu jumped down from the seat and went over to her, pausing to smile at Shinji. "I'll see you later." With that, he vanished back inside the labs, going by quickly enough that Yui barely had time to tousle his hair before he was gone.

For once, Shinji welcomed Rei's silence. At least that strange boy was finally gone, and he could go _home, _where things would be normal again.

:TBC:


	3. The Malignant Innocent

Gavotte

See disclaimer in the prelude

"I don't like him," Shinji said definitively of Kaworu when his mother asked how things had gone in the waiting room.

Yui paused to peer back at her son through the car's rearview mirror. "Oh? Why… what happened? Kaworu didn't do anything that bad, did he?"

Shinji fidgeted, and gave Rei an uncomfortable sidelong look. She was waist-deep into her book again, and looked for all the world like Armageddon could crash down around her without her taking even the slightest notice. "He's just… weird, Mom…" He made a face. "He kept asking me all these strange questions, and he kept coming too close. He's not _normal."_

Yui sighed and returned her focus to the road. "Shinji…"

"But, Mom, he _isn't _normal!"

"I know, Shinji," Yui told him gently. "Please understand… Kaworu hasn't been raised like most children. He's still learning how to act around people who aren't used to him. He does a lot of these things because he just doesn't know better yet."

"He kept asking me about what living with you was like," Shinji said to his mother, baffled. "And he said that he lived alone, in the lab."

"Then there isn't much left for me to explain," Yui replied. "Kaworu is a lot like Rei. You know that she stayed there until your father and I decided to take her in."

"He's nothing like Rei," Shinji said flatly, giving Rei a slightly nervous look, wondering if their talking about her would make her angry.

"They're more similar than you would think. One of the reasons that Rei seems so withdrawn to you is that she's never really had to reach out to others to satisfy her needs. If there was ever anything she had to have, your father and I—or one of the scientists who work with us—have seen to it that she gets it." Yui flipped the turn signal next to the steering wheel and changed lanes. "But Kaworu is used to having to work to get people's attention. I'll admit, he's an unusually blunt boy, but Shinji, try to be understanding and help him however you can. Even if you can't help not liking him, the two of you are going to be together a lot from now on. You'll see each other at NERV, of course, and as soon as we decide to introduce Kaworu to the rest of the world, I'll take him with us to do things and have Misato take care of him along with you and Rei.

"You don't have to be his best friend, Shinji… all I'm asking you to do is try to understand why he acts the way he does. Okay?"

Shinji sighed, defeated. "Okay…" At the very least, his home and school lives were safe from Kaworu. He could deal with the other boy's strangeness as long as he had _some _kind of sanctuary.

---

Shinji's father was missing from dinner again that night, and their silence around the table was awkward, with continued glances at Gendo's empty seat. Yui seemed perfectly calm, but Shinji knew that his mother got lonely when her husband didn't come home.

At times like this, he could almost hate his father.

The silent meal was followed by brief baths for both children, and the more accustomed silence of bedtime. Shinji had long since outgrown his need for a nightlight, and so the only illumination came from the open window, whose curtains drifted lazily in the breeze, framing a rather beautiful view of the night sky. It was neither too cold nor too warm, but Shinji found himself unable to get to sleep for quite some time, staring up at the lower ceiling that the bunk bed he shared with Rei created. He almost wanted to climb up the ladder to see if she was still awake, but like the silence that pervaded the air around her, the top bunk was hers and hers alone. He would only brook Rei's as yet nonexistent anger by venturing up, so he stayed as quiet as he could, fidgeting around uncomfortably.

No matter how hard he tried to banish the thought, Shinji found that the image of Kaworu's wistful expression as he said that he didn't have parents kept popping into his brain. At least _that _host of questions was more understandable than the rest. Shinji's parents worked so much, but at least they were there for him—the thought of life without them was unspeakable. Still, he tried to imagine what it must be like. No otherwise gruff father taking him to the beach and watching with an arm around Yui's waist as their son played in the shallows. No smiling mother there to welcome her child every day as he returned from school. Shinji shivered and pulled the covers over his head, feeling a terrible sense of seclusion sweeping over him. It would be so lonely, not to have parents.

And yet, Shinji realized as he found the comforter too stifling and held up an opening so he could breathe, Kaworu wouldn't feel that awful loneliness, because he wouldn't _know _what the companionship of parents was like. And knowing that other children had them, of course Kaworu would wonder.

Shinji punched his pillow, feeling his face grow hot. He didn't even _like _the other boy, and here he was, starting to feel sorry for him. He needed to stop thinking so much and just go to sleep already.

But for hours yet, Shinji could only feel his pity for Kaworu growing as his restless mind cycled along the tracks of what he had seen at NERV and what his mother had told him. It was a long time before he could manage to get comfortable enough to sleep.

---

Shinji was already in a fairly surly mood due to lack of sleep when he hunched into his desk at school the next morning.

Hikari, across from him, blinked and pulled at one of her pigtails with a frown. "Shinji-kun, is something wrong? You look angry…"

Shinji sighed and rested his head on his crossed arms, closing his eyes. "I'm just tired."

Hikari blinked and looked helplessly at Rei, who sat next to her and across from the empty desk beside Shinji. Though she didn't say anything, Rei was staring at Shinji with an inscrutable look on her face.

"Okay, class, listen up!" the teacher chirped. Her cheer only darkened Shinji's black mood, and he sunk closer to the cold comfort of his desktop, letting his chin rest against its surface. "We have a new student joining us today, so I'd like to have your attention!"

Shinji's eyes flew open. He sat up and whirled around to look, the itch of suspicion creeping around his chest. _It couldn't be…_

The teacher looked to the door and beckoned. "Come on in, dear!"

_Oh, God, no. This is a NIGHTMARE._

That _outfit._

That _impossible _hair.

That gaze, intrusive to the point of _violation._

And that _incredibly_ annoying, larger-than-was-natural _smile._

_Nightmare, _Shinji's mind protested feebly as his heart hit his shoes and his mouth dropped open in numb disbelief.

"Class, this is Kaworu Nagisa. He just transferred here from a different school, so be nice to him, okay? He doesn't know his way around yet, and he doesn't have many friends."

"Do you know him, Shinji-kun?" Hikari asked in a whisper. Shinji couldn't answer.

The teacher scanned the room. "Nagisa-kun, there's an empty desk over there. You'll be sitting with Ikari-kun, Ayanami-chan, and Horaki-chan. Is that alright?"

Kaworu nodded and threaded his way through the clusters of desks to his new seat as Shinji's sanity threatened to rebel against him.

_This can't be happening…_

"Waiii, Shinji!" Kaworu turned his beaming smile on the horrorstruck boy as he sat down. "Hi! I didn't think I'd see you here!"

Shinji shot the teacher a pleading glance, but she was going through roll call and didn't see him. Oblivious, Kaworu went on.

"There are so many people here… I don't think I've ever seen so many people all together at once. It's good to know someone out of everybody… don't you think so, Shinji?"

_I wish he'd just attach a suffix or something… _Shinji fidgeted. _He makes it sound like we've known each other forever. Please, God get me out of this and I will never, ever, ever do anything bad again, I swear._

Always eager to make friends, Hikari smiled at Kaworu, only managing the barest fraction of the brilliance the silver-haired boy radiated. "Hi, Nagisa-kun! I'm Hikari Horaki. It's nice to meet you."

Shinji sighed in relief as Kaworu shifted his attention to Hikari, striking up an animated conversation with the heavily freckled girl. At least for now, he'd been spared.

But how in the world was he going to be able to survive the rest of the day with Kaworu sitting right next to him?

Glancing at Rei, who was watching Kaworu with mild curiosity, Shinji wondered if maybe she didn't have the right idea, not talking to anybody. Still, that ruse probably wouldn't work with Shinji—not talking was a lot of hard work, and he bet that Kaworu could be excruciatingly obnoxious if his questions didn't get answered.

It was amazing, how the heart-wrenching pity he'd felt for the boy just last night had evaporated as though it'd never existed in the first place once Kaworu was next to him again, exuding that strange alien sense of being something not quite right. He knew he should be patient, like his mother had told him… but there was no way he could ever adjust that much to Kaworu's over-intrusive nature.

"Do you like to play games, Nagisa-kun?" Hikari was asking.

"Games…?" Kaworu looked blank for a moment. Shinji winced, suddenly embarrassed for the other boy. Obviously Kaworu wouldn't know much about just doing fun things, living a life of being a test subject at NERV. He almost wanted to reach out and say something to break the situation, but he didn't know how to do it.

Maybe Yui and his turbulent train of thought last night had the right of it after all. Maybe Kaworu _was _someone to be pitied.

Watching a slow blush start to creep across Kaworu's face, Shinji almost cringed in his seat. He felt like the world was moving in slow motion as the strange boy beside him groped for some kind of answer. There was nothing he could do, but he didn't want Hikari to find out about Kaworu's background like _this._

Then the unthinkable happened.

"Do you read?"

Hikari and Shinji both gaped. It was only three words, but that was three words more than Rei Ayanami usually spoke on a daily basis without being prodded. It was incredible—just as incredible as the fact that she'd just reached out and effortlessly rescued Kaworu from revealing the deprivation of his childhood.

Shinji was able to stop staring at Rei just in time to see Kaworu give the reticent girl a look of such effusive gratitude that it almost made Shinji squirm again, wishing he'd been the one to pull Kaworu out of his awkward situation. Which was weird. He didn't _want _Kaworu to be grateful to him—that would just make the other boy even more clingy, wouldn't it? But he couldn't help feeling that way nonetheless.

It was strange…

"I like to read," Kaworu said, nodding, slipping his smile back into place. "There's a Western author called Tolkien who writes these really cool books that I like… but playing my violin is even _better _than reading."

Hikari turned around and gaped at Kaworu instead of Rei. "You play the _violin?"_

Kaworu blinked at her, nonplussed. "…Yeah…"

"That's really hard! My mommy's teaching me how to play the piano, but I can barely do it… it's so hard to read the music!"

Kaworu shook his head, the luminescence of his smile becoming even brighter and more genuine than Shinji had ever seen it before. "Don't worry about it! You just need practice, that's all. I had trouble playing the violin at first, but it's _so _much fun now!"

"Really? What kinds of songs do you like to play?"

Shinji honestly thought that Kaworu's smile couldn't get any wider, but it did. "My favorite one is the 'Ode to Joy'!"

Shinji had wanted to stay silent, but he couldn't help himself. "Yeah, that's a nice song."

Hikari giggled. "Wow, Shinji, I didn't know you liked that kind of music!"

Shinji instantly went red. "Well… you know… my mother gave me a tape player a while back with a bunch of classical music on it… and I just got used to it… so…" His voice trailed off as he stared down at his hands, his cheeks flaming.

"Ikari-san says that when I get older, she thinks I can play in a quartet," Kaworu cut in, the utter glow of his happiness diverting all attention from Shinji—_Purposely or not? _the boy couldn't help but wonder. "That would be soooo fun! Playing with other people… violas and cellos have such a beautiful sound."

"Now, everyone, stop talking, please, and pay attention," the teacher called, clapping her hands. "We have a time test on adding and subtracting double-digit numbers today. I hope you all practiced!"

Hikari instantly started looking nervous. "I don't know if I studied enough…" she whispered, guilty-faced.

Shinji reached across his desk and hers to pat her hand. "It's okay, you study harder than anybody else even though you don't need to."

"I don't know… what about you, Nagisa-kun?"

Kaworu shrugged, looking blank again. "Math isn't that hard."

Shinji gave him a sidelong look. "Speak for yourself."

"Quiet," Rei said softly, which was enough to shut them all up just in time for the teacher to deposit tests on all four of their desks.

Amidst Hikari's fretting and Rei's unusual talkativeness, Shinji spared a peek over at Kaworu only to find that the other boy was smiling at him now.

Urk.

Well… at least as long as he had someone else around, it looked like the rest of the day could be livable.

Harsh, but livable.

Shinji sighed and resigned himself to seven hours of constant annoyance.

:TBC:


End file.
